Business this week

The New York State Department of Financial Services accused Standard Chartered, a big British multinational bank, of concealing $250 billion in transactions made by the Iranian government in defiance of sanctions. The regulator said the bank had “schemed” with the Iranians and called it a “rogue institution”. Standard Chartered, which traces its roots back to the mid-19th century and earns 90% of its income in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, flatly rejected the allegation. It said its own analysis found that it had complied with American sanctions on Iran in over 99.9% of transactions. See article

Knight’s fright

Knight Capital, a market-maker, obtained a $400m emergency bail-out from a consortium of Wall Street firms, after faulty software produced wild swings in some share prices on the New York Stock Exchange. Knight’s own share price fell off a cliff after the incident on August 1st, which cost it $440m. The consortium that rescued it, which includes such financial titans as Jefferies and TD Ameritrade, will end up holding around 70% of Knight. See article

The founder of Best Buy, one of America’s biggest retailers of consumer electronics, offered to buy out the company. Richard Schulze was its chief executive for 36 years until 2002, and recently stepped down as chairman. As with other traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers, Best Buy is grappling with the challenge posed by Amazon and other shopping websites. Mr Schulze has a turnaround plan, which he thinks will be more effective if Best Buy is taken private.

Japan Airlines said it would re-list on the stockmarket in an initial public offering next month, after three years in bankruptcy protection. During that time it has cut its workforce, slashed pay and pensions and reduced the number of its flights, all of which helped it turn a record profit for the year ending in March. Its target of raising ¥663 billion ($8.5 billion) would make it Asia’s biggest IPO this year.

Rio Tinto reported a 34% drop in underlying profit for the first half of the year, to $5.2 billion. The miner’s business depends on selling iron ore to China, which is buying less of the stuff as its economy cools. Xstrata, a rival, posted a 23% fall in attributable profit, to $2.2 billion, also in part because of the downturn in commodity prices.

Meanwhile, BHPBilliton took a write-down of $2.8 billion against shale-gas assets it acquired in America last year. Since then a glut of natural gas has caused prices to plunge. Marius Kloppers, BHP Billiton’s boss, will forgo his bonus because of the charge.

Pfizer, a big American drugs company, was fined more than $60m under America’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for bribing foreign officials. Its punishment was light, by American standards, because it co-operated with the investigation. See article

Television distortion

Sharp had another dismal quarter. The Japanese electronics company sold about half as many LCD TVs as it did during the same period a year ago, and forecast a whopping annual net loss of ¥250 billion ($3.2 billion), more than its current market value. Hon Hai, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer better known as Foxconn, said it would renegotiate the terms of a deal to buy a 10% stake in Sharp. Sharp’s shareholders shivered. See article

Hewlett-Packard wrote down its technology-services business by $8 billion, an admission that its $13.9 billion purchase of Electronic Data Systems, an IT-outsourcing company, in 2008 has not worked out well.

Indonesia’s economy, the biggest in South-East Asia, grew by 6.4% in the second quarter. The figure was better than had been expected, given the decline in the country’s exports of raw materials, and was boosted by the spending power of Indonesia’s burgeoning middle classes and by public and private investment, which is growing at its fastest pace since the late 1990s.

America’s employers added 163,000 jobs to the payrolls in July, but the unemployment rate crept up again, to 8.3%.

The Bank of England drastically reduced its growth forecast from the one it gave just three months ago. The central bank now thinks that output in the British economy will not return to its pre-crisis levels until 2014, when it projects GDP to rise by a listless 2%.

Where the smart money is

A world of virtual cash came a step closer, as Starbucks announced that it was teaming up with Square, a pioneer in technology that enables payments through smartphones. Starbucks already has its own mobile-payment app, but Square’s GPS-based system will eventually allow customers to pay for a mocha light frappuccino by simply saying their name (once they have registered with the system).